2.1 Field of the Invention
The present invention provides systems, materials and methods for producing “biofuels”, a wide range of liquid, solid biomass, or biogas fuels that are in some way derived from a carbon source that can be rapidly replenished, (including, for example hydrocarbons derived from or produced by biological organisms), referred to herein as “biofuels” and “nanobiofuels” using nanoscale control methods, nanotechnological materials and principles. The present invention relates to the areas of biofuels, biophysics, nanotechnology, chemistry, and molecular biology.
2.2 The Related Art
On 20 Apr. 2010, British Petroleum's (“BP's”) Deepwater Horizon off-shore oil drilling platform, located in the Gulf of Mexico about 41 miles off the Louisiana coast, exploded, burned, and sank, killing 11 and injuring 17 of the platform's approximately 130-person crew. The undersea wellhead began emitting an uncontrolled submerged plume of oil that has now become the largest environmental disaster in history, surpassing the infamous Exxon Valdez tanker spill of 1989. Official U.S. Coast Guard estimates indicate that oil is gushing in to the Gulf of Mexico at a rate of about 35,000-60,000 barrels (“bbls”) each day; some estimates by environmental scientists place the rate as much as ten-fold higher. As of the present time, attempts to bring the oil plume under control have only been partly successful.
Although much remains to be learned about the details of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, including allegations of mis-management by BP and lax oversight by the U.S. Government's Mineral Management Service, it is widely accepted that the design and location of the platform is indicative of the growing difficulties in finding and tapping new sources to satisfy the world's growing demands for increasingly scarce fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are hydrocarbons, primarily coal, petroleum (including liquid petroleum or natural gas), or other hydrocarbon-containing natural resources that are formed from the fossilized remains of dead plants and animals that are exposed often over hundreds of millions of years to heat and pressure in the Earth's crust. Oil production peaked in the 1970s, but the demand for oil has only increased in both the industrialized and developing worlds. Even the major petroleum companies have admitted that the days of easy strikes have ended. William J. Cummings, an Exxon-Mobile spokesman, commented in 2005 that “[a]ll the easy oil and gas in the world has pretty much been found. Now comes the harder work in finding and producing oil from more challenging environments and work areas.” Lord Ron Oxburgh, a former chairman of Shell Oil, concurred in 2008: “It is pretty clear that there is not much chance of finding any significant quantity of new cheap oil. Any new or unconventional oil is going to be expensive.” Thus, the stage has been set for Deepwater Horizon and the other rigs like it, rigs that require cutting-edge technology to obtain fossil fuels from some of the world's harshest and most remote environments.
The difficulties in finding new oil reserves mentioned above have led many petroleum industry observers to believe that the world has entered, or will soon enter, the era of “peak oil”: The period during which oil production will reach its zenith and then continually dwindle. The concept of peak oil is based on the work of geologist M. King Hubbert, who developed predictive models of domestic U.S. oil production that accurately predicted its peak in the period between 1965 and 1970. Hubbert's ideas, now called “Hubbert peak theory” have been successfully applied to prediction of peak oil production in other regions, countries, fields, and even wells. Current global predictions of peak oil suggest that the maximum of production will occur some time between about 2015 and about 2020. (Some observers estimate that we have already entered the peak oil period.) After that, oil will become increasingly scarce regardless of how hard mankind searches for it. Critics of peak oil theory point to the use of new technologies to extract oil and other fossil fuels from harder-to-reach sources driven by economic incentives; but such oil would certainly be more expensive than oil from current (conventional) sources, and there is no guarantee that decreasing oil production can be alleviated by a faith in economic incentives and technology.
The effects of the current demand for riskier methods of obtaining oil and other fossil fuels, regardless of whether we have entered or will soon enter the era of peak oil, can already be felt by the current catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico. But the economic, social, and even individual pain will only grow as the economies of the world adjust to ever scarcer oil supplies. Predictions of the severity of the effects of increasing oil scarcity run from large bouts of inflation to the collapse of industrial civilization. As countries vie for dwindling fossil fuel reserves, the risk of conflict will also grow.
Moreover, as the Exxon Valdez disaster illustrates, merely transporting the billions of barrels of oil produced each day carries risks. Tankers and port facilities have been sources of environmental damage from oil spills due to mishandling and collisions. Worse, much of the world's oil shipping passes through several geographical choke points, such as the Straits of Hormuz and Malacca, both of which are considered vulnerable to terrorist attacks and interdiction by rouge states. The Gulf of Oman, located just outside the Strait of Hormuz, has become infamous for pirate activities. The U.S. alone has spent billions in defense appropriations to maintain a high level of security in these waters.
But U.S. defense spending extends well beyond protecting the sea lanes. The U.S. and other countries have made vast commitments in money, equipment, and personnel to protect the oil producing countries such as the Arabian Peninsula. Modern large-scale industrial development and global modernization rely heavily upon fossil fuels. The growing dependence on depleting fossil fuels, such as gasoline derived from oil, is the causes of major regional and global conflicts and growing environmental concerns. There is a tremendous threat to global security not only due to competition over dwindling fossil fuel reserves, but also due to impact of burning fossil fuels on climate change and the carbon footprint on our environment.
The burning of fossil fuels by humans is the largest source of emissions of carbon dioxide, which is one of the greenhouse gases that contributes to global warming, causing the average surface temperature of the Earth to rise in response. Greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels are posing a great threat to our global and environmental security and if unchecked could eventually endanger life on this planet.
One way to delay the arrival, and offset the effects, of the decline in oil production, and the resulting threats to our security and our environment, is to encourage conservation. Allowing market forces to act as a brake on consumption, increasing mileage efficiency standards for cars, and encouraging the development of vehicles powered by other energy sources, such as electricity using nuclear power, all can ameliorate the pain expected from the loss of relatively cheap petroleum. But such efforts will not remove completely the need for oil, which will still be a vital source of lubricants, and carbon feedstocks for fertilizers, plastics, and all sorts of important chemicals such as pharmaceuticals.
Thus the world requires truly new sources of “renewable fuels” that can be rapidly replenished. We focus this invention on renewable biofuels which comprise a wide range of liquid, solid biomass, or biogas fuels that are in some way derived from a carbon source that can be rapidly replenished, (including for example hydrocarbons derived from or produced by biological organisms), referred to herein as “biofuels” and as “nanobiofuels” when using nanoscale control methods, nanotechnological materials and principles. A myriad of technologies to produce hydrocarbons that do not require fossil fuels from geological sources have been proposed and are in different stages of development. Among these nascent technologies are new methods for producing “biofuels”, i.e., a wide range of liquid, solid biomass, or biogas fuels that are in some way derived from a carbon source that can be rapidly replenished, (including for example hydrocarbons derived from or produced by biological organisms), referred to herein as biofuels and as nanobiofuels when using nanoscale control methods, nanotechnological materials and principles. Biofuels include hydrocarbons that are made through or derived somehow from biological processes, especially by organisms, instead of through longer timescale geological processes. Many organisms naturally produce hydrocarbons in the form of oils that can be harvested by collecting their secretions or using cellular disruption. Two particular examples of such organisms are certain algae and termophilic microbes.
Efforts at algaculture, the farming of algae using the techniques of aquaculture, have produced a variety of biofuels (i.e., fuels derived in some way from a carbon source that can be rapidly replenished, (including for example hydrocarbons derived from or produced by biological organisms or from biomass), including vegetable oil, biodiesel, bioethanol, biogasoline, biomethanol, biobutanol among others. Typical algaculture efforts include the use of so-called “micro-algae”: unicellular algal species that live individually, in chains, or in groups. Microalgae sizes can range from a few micrometers (μm) to a few hundreds of micrometers. Microalgae lack roots, stems, and leaves; so they can be cultivated in aqueous environments. Algal species currently under development for biofuel production include: Botryococcus braunii, Chlorella, Dunaliella tertiolecta, Gracilaria, Pleurochrysis carterae, and Sargassum. In particular, recent studies suggest that algae could be raised scalably in sufficient mass to produce about 200 bbl of algal oil per hectare (ha) of land. However, inefficiencies at all stages of production severely limit achievement of this theoretical amount; current processes can only produce algal oil and its derivatives at a cost of at least $60-$100/bbl, which prevents algal biofuels from viably competing with petroleum and other fossil fuels.
Certain thermophilic microbes can also produce renewable biofuels. In particular, the thermophilic microbes Ax99-59 or JH146 have been found to have the intrinsic enzymatic machinery needed to produce hydrocarbon fuels directly from CO2, such as isobutanol (CH3CH(CH3)CH2OH), a useful hydrocarbon that can be readily processed and derivatized into a wide variety of commercially valuable fuels and chemical compounds. However the development of these organisms into a commercially viable and scalable biofuel source remains to be seen.
As we enter the second decade of the 21st Century, America and the world face daunting challenges to meeting our growing needs for renewable fuels and sources of hydrocarbons that can be rapidly replenished. As the New York Times reported (22 Jun. 2010), Americans want new energy sources, but they don't want to see increases in gasoline prices. Thus, any new source of hydrocarbons must compete against oil and gasoline prices that are still relatively cheap, largely because they do not reflect the total costs to society in terms of security and environmental damage. The present invention meets these and other needs.